Chesterton Tribune

 

 

Five felonies filed against teen in fatal US 6 crash

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A Portage teen who crashed his SUV on U.S. Highway 6 in October, in an accident which took the life of his passenger, is facing five felony charges after the Porter County Sheriff’s Police said that he was found to have opiates in his system.

Charles H. Stilley, 18, with listed addresses in both Portage and Salesville, Ohio, was charged on Monday with four different counts of operating while intoxicated--including OWI-causing death and OWI-with a controlled substance in the blood--and one count of reckless homicide.

According to police, at 11:42 a.m. Oct. 28 Stilley, driving a 2000 Mercedes Benz SUV, was westbound on U.S. 6, in the area of C.R. 200W in Liberty Township, when he crossed the center line and his vehicle left the roadway, striking a tree stump and then flipping onto its driver’s side in a swampy area.

Stilley’s passenger, Kyanna Otero, 19, also of Portage, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Stilley, who sustained internal injuries and head lacerations, was transported to Porter Regional Hospital, where he reportedly advised an attending physician that he’d used heroin earlier in the day, around 9 a.m., police said in the probable cause affidavit.

Stilley also tested positive for opiates and cannabinoids in a urine sample “taken in the normal course of treatment,” police said.

On two subsequent blood draws, authorized through a search warrant, Stilley tested positive for “morphine and marijuana,” police added.

Meanwhile, a PCSP officer found in Stilley’s wallet a “two-page note” which “stated that it was to be read when he was dead and indicated that he may take his life,” police also said.

And in an interview conducted with another officer at the hospital, Stilley advised that he’d driven from Ohio “to pick up” Otero at a relative’s house, that he arrived there around 3 or 4 a.m., and that on his arrival they both used heroin, with Otero injecting him and then herself, police said.

The most serious charges against Stilley, OWI-causing death and reckless homicide, are Class 5 felonies punishable by a term of one to six years.

 

 

 

Posted 12/17/2014

 
 
 
 

 

 

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